Notes from the back row

The hottest of the hot

Everybody loves a heat wave.
Canada Day weekend was the perfect mix of good movies showing in
air-conditioned theatres, clear warm nights where a person could just sleep
where they fell, and long, scorching days that bring out summer’s best –
the bikinis. In honour of global warming and the brand new gas tax I present
some good news — The Ten Best Movie Bikini Scenes Ever.

The movie
Wanted
opened to over $50 million last weekend so let’s
begin with Angelina, who actually doesn’t do many bikini movies. She generally
goes topless or swims in a wedding dress (
Hackers
— that ruled) but 2001’s
Tomb Raider
proved to be a nice exception.

Number Nine — 1966’s
One
Million Years B.C.
, with Raquel Welch
rocking the height of animal pelt/cavewoman fashion. Prehistory never looked so
good.

Neither did Jessical Biel,
after her pool scenes in 2001’s
Summer Catch.
Shitty movie but great nostalgia for anyone who’s
ever poached a pool with a really cute girl.

Next up, more from the old
school and 1979’s
10
, the movie
that made Bo Derek so famous the kids on the bus were still talking about her
when I started kindergarten in ’81. Watch for the cameltoe.

Back in the water for Number
Six — Jessica Alba pretty much saving
Into the Blue
by swimming like a mermaid for almost 90 minutes, and
had many moviegoers wondering if the movie shouldn’t have been called Into the
Blue Bikini.

It’s not uncommon for the
stupidest movies to have some of the hottest chicks in them. Check out
always-stellar Eva Mendes poolside in the 2003 conjoined-twin comedy
Stuck
on You.
The movie is actually pretty
funny too.

Tura Satana and Lori Williams
aren’t technically wearing bikinis when they get in the lake but they go-go
shake in them all through the opening credits of Russ Meyer’s
Faster
Pussycat Kill Kill
, a 1964 classic
that just misses bronze medal but wins for best title.

And at Number Three –
Die
Another Day
, with Halle Berry doing
what Ursula Andress did in
Dr. No
,
exiting the ocean with style, grace and a big knife. Quelle Homage Halle, she’s
the hottest bond girl thus far.

For the silver medal we get
mathematic. The ancient golden ratio for beauty and proportion is something
like 1.61803399 to 1. A few years back a computer designed a face out of
millions of little triangles built on that ratio and the face was Elizabeth
Hurley. After turning heads and dropping jaws in the first (and best)
Austin
Powers,
Liz popped up in 2000’s
Bedazzled
playing the freakin’ deavil in a red sequined bikini while
holding an apple with a snake wrapped around her neck. Another perfect ratio of
awesomeness to hotness and more than enough to make a person want to go to
hell.

Can you beat female hot-Satan
with a British accent? Yes you can.

The Number One Greatest
Bikini Scene in film history is 1984’s
Fast Times at Ridgemont High —.
Phoebe Cates coming out that pool,
the music kicks in, and BOOM! Filmmaking at its finest. Even though the shot
was edited against Judge Reinhold jerking off on the toilet this one still wins
hands down.

And that’s it. Will Smith’s
movie is the only new flick this week. It’s called
Hancock
and it’s a flawed mixture of superhero, dramatic,
romantic and comedy themes that loses all its satire early on and tries so hard
to please everyone that it ultimately ends up a garbled, flat mess. No epic
bikini sequences either, but a guy gets his own head shoved up his ass in a
prison scene. Which will do, I suppose, in a pinch.